Thursday, 2 May 2019

Enter the Undead World of Dominic DeChance - and Win!

If you have never read David Niall Wilson's DeChance Chronicles, now is the time to put that right. The first four volumes are available in omnibus edition and the fifth - AMidnight Dreary - will help ease the pangs of withdrawal once you have finished it. If you love tales of the fantastic, magic, sorcery, the undead and dragons, enter the incredible,multi-dimensional world of Dominic DeChance...

About
the books:

Donovan DeChance is a collector of ancient manuscripts and books, a
practicing mage, and a private investigator. This Omnibus Collection includes
books I, II, III, and IV of the series. Included are Heart of a Dragon, Vintage
Soul, My Soul to Keep (The Origin story of Donovan DeChance) and Kali's Tale.

Also included are the bonus novellas The Not Quite
Right Reverend Cletus J. Diggs & The Currently Accepted Habits of
Nature, and The Preacher's Marsh, both of which provide
background on settings and characters that appear in Kali's Tale.

If you enjoy
this book, you should read Nevermore, A Novel of Love, Loss & Edgar Allan
Poe, which follows on Kali's Tale, has a cameo from Donovan DeChance, and leads
into Book V - A Midnight Dreary

Heart of a Dragon

When a local houngan begins meddling with powers
she may not be able to control, a turf war breaks out between the Dragons
motorcycle club and the Los Escorpiones street gang—a war that threatens to
open portals between worlds and destroy the city in the process. With his
lover, Amethyst, his familiar, Cleo – an Egyptian Mau the size of a small
bobcat –the dubious aid of a Mexican sorcerer named Martinez and the budding
gifts of a young artist named Salvatore, DeChance begins a race against time, magic,
and almost certain death.

Vintage Soul

When, despite the finest in natural and supernatural
security, a sexy and well-loved, three hundred year old lady vampire is
kidnapped right out from under her lover's nose, Donovan is called in to
investigate. There will be no ransom for the kidnap victim, and if Donovan
doesn't prevent an ancient, forbidden ritual from reaching its culmination, far
more than a single vampire's undead existence will be at stake.

My Soul to Keep

Donovan DeChance is a very private man, and he is in
love. When he invites his partner and lover, Amethyst, for a quiet dinner, she
has no idea of his true intention. Donovan has planned a sharing - a vision
that will give her the keys to his early life - the origins of his power - and a
lot more than she bargained for. Join young Donovan as he fights to keep his
soul, save a town, and learn the roots of his teacher and guardian - and meet
his familiar, Cleo.

Here is an excerpt, from Chapter Six:

Cleo and the Nightmare

The carriage
shuddered as the door closed behind Donovan.He gripped the doorframe from the inside and rode it out.He knew the creature harnessed to the front
was aware of him.He didn't think it
could release itself from the harness, and he didn't think it could get to him
as long as he was inside the carriage.What he was afraid of was that it would raise enough of a fuss to alert
its master.Whatever was going on inside
the saloon had everyone busy for the moment, but how long could it last?

He glanced around him and got the
lay of the strange vehicle.There were
no windows, for one thing.He'd never
seen a carriage with no windows for the passenger to peer out through.There was a single seat, dead center, and it
was oddly placed and sized.It didn't
seem as though a man could sit in that seat comfortably.His feet would dangle off the floor, and the
angle of the back was very rigid.There
was no upholstery.The seat was the same
hard, black polished wood as the carriage exterior.He studied it for only a moment, and then
began scanning the rest of the vehicle's interior.

The light was dim, but he found
that his eyes had adjusted well enough.He saw there were several doors in the back wall of the chamber, and he
went to them quickly.He opened the
first.He saw a row of books and small
cases, an array of pouches, cups, and braziers, and a dagger in a long, slender
leather sheath.He had no idea what he
was looking for, but nothing in this cabinet called out to him, and he felt
that whatever held Silkstone's "power" would leap out at him – that
he would know it.

He opened the right-hand cabinet
that stood farthest from the wall.He
thought, maybe, that what he sought would be there, because it was the farthest, and so the most
protected.This door hid blankets,
clothing, candles, and a variety of odd grooming implements that Donovan
neither recognized, nor understood. None of it seemed important.Not in the way that the boy, Bones, had
intimated.

He stood before the center door
for a moment.There was a bumping sound,
and his heart nearly stopped.He
stumbled to his feet, and could not, in that second, tell whether the sound
came from before him, behind him, inside or outside the carriage.He cried out then, abandoning caution, and
flung the center door open wide.There
was a low growl, something warm, soft, and heavy launched from the cabinet's
interior and struck him dead in the center of his chest.He gasped and closed his eyes, certain he'd
breathed his last, but when nothing further happened, he opened his eyes and
stared.

On his legs, staring at him
intently, was a cat. It made no move to escape, nor did it attack.It was almost as if it were waiting for him
to speak, or to make the first move.He
sat up slowly.The cat didn't budge, and
a moment later, they were face to face, the cat on his lap as he sat, facing
the open cabinet behind it.

"Move on now," he said
softly."I have to find something,
and there's not much time."

He picked the animal up gently
and placed it on the floor beside him.Then he dropped forward to his knees and peered into the interior of the
cabinet.There were three jars inside
that were filled with something dark and grainy, like dirt – or sand.Behind them, there was another row of similar
jars stretching so far to either side that they disappeared into the shadowy
compartment's interior.In front of all
of it sat what appeared to be a brass clock.It had a glass dome covering its works, and inside were four heavy brass
balls that spun back and forth slowly, beating like a heart.

He glanced at the jars, but his
gaze was drawn back, again and again, to the ticking, mesmerizing motion of the
clock.Could that be it?Could it be that simple?Was it – in fact – simple, if time itself was
involved?

Donovan leaned forward and
reached for the clock.The cat, watching
intently from where he'd placed it at his side, leaped.It crashed into his hand, and instead of
touching the clock, he struck the one of the front three jars.It tilted, wavered for a moment, and then
spun out of the cabinet.Donovan tried
to catch it, but he was too slow.It
crashed to the floor and shattered.He
cursed, started to turn to the cat, and then cried out as something spewed from
the broken jar, whirling and filling the air with a dark miasma of grit, sand,
dust, and something more.There was
sound, like a long, agonized scream.Donovan fell back, and the force, ignoring him, whirled in the air and
battered at the carriage door.It struck
once, recoiled, and then with an incredible burst of power, shot straight
through the wood.The door exploded
outward in a wash of splinters and shards.The horse reared and the carriage tilted up on two wheels.

Donovan tried to stand, but the
jerk of the carriage swept him off his feet again and he tumbled back.The cat, caught off guard, also tumbled.Without thinking, Donovan reached out, caught
it, and tucked it against his chest as jars tumbled from the cabinet, crashing
against one another, into the floor and against the walls, and jostling the
clock.Each time one of the jars was
broken, the screaming, whirling grit filling the carriage increased in volume
and power, driving Donovan against the back of the strangely designed seat.

The cat dug its claws into his
shirt, but not his skin.It clung
tightly, and Donovan curled around it protectively.As he did, he felt an odd sensation creep
over him.His own screams quieted, and
his mind, which had threatened to spiral out of control into darkness, or
madness, calmed.He glanced up carefully
and took in the small space with new clarity.He saw the clock.It teetered,
and somehow, just in time, he realized that he could not allow it to fall, or
to break.He didn't know why, but he
knew he had to protect it, as he protected the cat, and that he had to get it
out of that carriage. Without any further thought, he acted.

It wasn't easy.Whatever was breaking free of the jars was
powerful.It was also angry, and he was
the only thing in range.He sensed he was
not a target, but that this did not mean there was no danger.He plastered himself to the far edge of the
carriage from the door and began, very slowly, to work his way around to the
cabinet once more.Not all of the jars
had broken open, and though the carriage still shivered and shook now and then,
the horse seemed to have realized its mistake and quieted.Something in Donovan's mind made him bypass
the clock once more.He ripped at the
jars.He drew them forth and flung them
out the door of the carriage, hearing them explode and scream and feeling the
buffeting power of whatever – whoever, he thought – was escaping.

He didn't stop until the cabinet
was free of everything but the clock.Then he reached for it again, but the cat – once again – knocked his
hand aside. He turned toward it and
glared.

"I have to get it out of
here," he said."I…"

The animal leaped past him to the
first cabinet he'd opened.It scrabbled
inside, dragging things free with its paws in a mad scramble, until a dark,
folded sheet of silk spilled free.It
spun, claws piercing the material, and leaped back to Donovan, though the silk
was nearly torn free by the escaping energy.It was lessening.With the final
jars tossed free of the carriage, and the dust whirling up and out and away,
the sound, and the power that had blasted Donovan's senses was dying toward
silence.He wanted the clock in his hand
and his feet on solid ground before that silence was complete, though again, he
had no idea why he wanted it.

He took the silk as the cat
backed away, watching him again with bright, glittering eyes.This was another thing he was going to have
to look into shortly.In his limited
experience of cats – they did not communicate on a human level.They did not save people from killing
themselves over magical clocks.They did
not dig around in cabinets.He didn't
allow himself to question it, or even think about it.He knew he had only moments, and he acted.

He slipped the silk over the
clock, wrapped it tightly, and lifted.It was heavy, and he nearly lost his grip as it slid off the shelf, but
he grunted, dug in his nails, and managed to lower it to the floor.He quickly knotted the silk about it, being
careful to cover every inch of the brass and glass.Then, thinking it might be important to have
his hands free, he knotted the loose ends of the silk tightly to his belt.It banged against his hip as he moved.There was a walking stick by the door.It was topped by a black stone.He grabbed it and clutched it tightly,
thinking it would make a decent club, and he had no other weapon.

He jumped down from the carriage
to the ground, and he turned toward the saloon.In that moment, the horse struck.It spun, tilting the carriage and ignoring the weight pulling on
it.Its eyes flamed and its jaws were
open wide.With a screech of rage it
lunged.Before it could strike, a blur
of spotted fury launched from the interior of the carriage.It struck the horse on the side the head,
clung, and its claws dug into the soft skin of the snout, and the nearest
eye.Donovan cried out and fell
back.The carriage tilted, teetered, and
then toppled over, dragging the horse back with it.The cat leaped free, landing at Donovan's
feet.

Before either of them could move
– the back door of the saloon blew outward and darkness poured out after
it.Through the sound, somehow, Donovan
heard Rathman's voice. Or maybe, he thought, he heard the words in his mind.

"Run, boy!For God's sake run."

He scrambled to his feet,
gathered up the cat in his arms, and did as he was told.

Kali's Tale

When Donovan is asked to follow in secret as a
hot-headed group of young vampires set out on a 'blood quest' to kill the
ancient who created the young vampire Kali against her will, he learns that -
as usual - there is a lot more to the story than meets the eye. Through the
juke joints of Beale Street in Memphis, to the depths of The Great Dismal
Swamp, Donovan and his lover and partner, Amethyst, find themselves drawn along
on one of the strangest quests in their long, enigmatic lives as they delve
into the world of the undead, the magic of The Blues, and the very heart of
alchemy both to protect their young, vampiric charges - and to prevent an
ancient evil from destroying the balance of power in the universe.

A Midnight Dreary

The long-awaited fifth volume in The DeChance
Chronicles, picks up outside Old Mill, NC, when Donovan, reminded that he has
promised his lover, Amethyst, and Geoffrey Bullfinch of the O.C.L.T. a story,
draws them back in time to a vision of the final chapter of the novel Nevermore,
a Novel of Love, Loss & Edgar Allan Poe. At vision's end, they realize
that they have to act, to free Eleanor MacReady from the trap that holds her on
the banks of Lake Drummond, in the Great Dismal Swamp.

These novels directly cross over to the original series O.C.L.T. - where
Donovan is a sometime consultant. It features appearances by Geoffrey
Bullfinch and Rebecca York, O.C.L.T. agents, as well as Old Mill, North
Carolina's own Cletus J. Diggs.

The fantastical happens every day to Dominic DeChance, but then he is no ordinary Private Investigator. He can see things others can't and move where they are unable to. He is part of the other-world that co-exists with the world as we know it.

The story begins with a motor bike roaring into life. A gang war between two rival factions - The Dragons and Los Escorpiones. But this is no West Side Story and these are no ordinary gangs. Supernatural forces are at work and only someone with DeChance's special powers and abilities can stop the mayhem that threatens the very fabric of existence.

This was a great adventure complete with dragons, timebends, voyages into other-worldly dimensions and plenty to make this reader want to keep reading the subsequent books in the series.